They weren’t quite wrong. The character who keeps trying and failing to kill himself could have arrived straight from a Monty Python sketch; the piles of rancid meat and the casually vicious proprietor of the dingy butcher shop where the play opens carry a distinct whiff of Joe Orton; and the play’s episodic structure smacks a bit of the period’s “let it all hang out” dramaturgy.

But their consensus wasn’t quite right, either. The work’s central character, a callous real estate deal maker played with great brio by Brenda Meaney, would be right at home in an ’80s play by David Mamet; some of the other Londoners in “Owners” resemble the dark-hearted losers populating 21st-century plays by Adam Rapp and Neil LaBute; and Ms. Churchill’s acidic critique of capitalist freebooters and the culture that worships them as heroes carries even more resonance today than it did in 1972, when the play opened.

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Alex Trow, left, and Sarah Manton.CreditJoan Marcus

“Owners” was Ms. Churchill’s first outing on the London stage, and she had yet to achieve the formal mastery that would make later plays like “Cloud Nine” and “Top Girls” instant modernist classics. But she already had full command of her voice and her themes, and the Yale Rep production, directed by Evan Yionoulis, adds a bold theatrical touch to lend the play a more adventurous, Churchillian style.

Ms. Yionoulis employs mannequins instead of extras in a few early scenes, and then freezes the live action at key moments so that the mannequins seem to take over the storytelling. These stagy tableaux underline the artificiality of the proceedings and give “Owners” some of the stylistic novelty that Ms. Churchill was able to write into her later plays.

Here, her main concern was upending not theater conventions but our understanding of the concept of property. “Owners” explores the social and moral implications of ownership — and not just for the owners. Marion, the ruthless broker who buys up cheap buildings, forces out the poor tenants and then reaps windfall profits from the upgraded, high-end housing, believes herself in control of her deals and her wealth. But her husband, the struggling butcher Clegg, believes just as firmly that he owns her.

As Worsely, Marion’s depressive lieutenant, schemes to eject Lisa, Alec and their family from a shabby apartment, Ms. Churchill shows us the years of overlapping power relationships that have led to this seemingly straightforward (if not exactly savory) business transaction. By the time the play is over, a baby has been made an object of barter, sexual favors have been traded like commercial paper and multiple murders have been planned and carried out with varying degrees of success.

Although the plot and the writing sometimes suggest farce, Ms. Yionoulis’s approach is more realistic, and Carmen Martinez’s turntable set and Benjamin Ehrenreich’s lighting follow suit. Only Seth Bodie’s exuberantly fur-trimmed costumes for Marion have the comic bite to match Ms. Meaney’s ferocity. Avidly munching on candy bars and whatever else comes to hand, and sweeping past the little people in her path, Ms. Meaney is pure savagery.

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Tommy Schrider and Ms. Manton.CreditJoan Marcus

Marion’s motto is “Do what you want. Get what you can.” Clegg, played with malicious zest by Anthony Cochrane, subscribes to it as well, pondering various methods of eliminating his wife. Joby

Earle’s morose Worsely does what he’s told, not what he wants, but occasionally they amount to the same thing. Sarah Manton’s Lisa, the most vulnerable of the five main characters, finds a way to retaliate when she’s pushed far enough.

And even Tommy Schrider’s laid-back Alec, who through most of “Owners” appears to have extinguished all worldly desires, eventually reveals he’s human after all. (Alex Trow keeps pace with him and the other fine actors in small turns as Alec’s decrepit mother and as a downstairs neighbor.)

As her characters seek to satisfy their cravings, Ms. Churchill makes us acutely aware that wealth is not the only thing at stake. The language of intimacy is the language of possession: “I’m yours whether you want me or not,” Marion says to the man she loves. The language of parenthood is the language of possession: Lisa is going to have a baby, but that doesn’t mean she will keep the baby.

And while self-possession is generally thought a positive trait, Ms. Churchill asks us to consider what it actually means to be self-possessed: Do we own our own lives, or do we merely rent them from “God the almighty landlord”? This is a question that transcends the ’70s. And so does “Owners.”

“Owners,” by Caryl Churchill, is at the Yale Repertory Theater, 1120 Chapel Street, New Haven, through Nov. 16. Information at (203) 432-1234 or yalerep.org.

A version of this article appears in print on , Section CT, Page 10 of the New York edition with the headline: The Implications of Ownership. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe